Pink Cotton Candy
by short-story-shorter
Summary: (College AU) Fluff so sweet and airy you can buy it at a carnival. And get cavities. Fire Alarms and News to Vic: Fire alarms suck and Vic gets some shocking news.
1. Beds

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

* * *

 **Beds:** Rachel needs a bed and Gar just happens to have an extra.

After the fourth night in the last two weeks of being banished to the student lounge at two o'clock in the morning, Rachel Roth was beginning to think that she was not meant to share a room.

Rachel liked her roommate, Kori Anders, well enough. She was a sweetheart—kind, lovely, and oblivious to her own beauty. She had a talent for reading Rachel's moods that no one ever really got. She knew when to push Rachel into grabbing a smoothie with her or when to leave Rachel to a book and cup of herbal tea. She was probably the best friend Rachel ever had. Kori was such a wonderful person it was hard to hate her.

Even when Rachel was stuck in the student lounge because Kori had invited her boyfriend back to their room in the middle of the night.

Tonight, just like the last three nights he'd come over, hadn't been planned. If it were, Rachel would have been able to find someone to bunk with before the couple returned. As it were, Rachel got a warning text about five minutes before Kori and boyfriend, Dick Grayson, stumbled through the door giggling. Awkward exchanges on both sides before Dick apologized and offered to leave and Rachel said that it was okay, she had homework to do and was planning on an all-nighter anyway and made her getaway.

She didn't have homework. She'd just finished a book and hadn't had enough time to pick out the next one to read. She'd left her laptop and headphones behind in her haste to escape. And her cell phone was running out of batteries.

In short, there was nothing for Rachel to do but watch MTV on the television in the lounge alone because she didn't know where the remote was.

She sighed with her chin propped in her hand as she leaned her elbow on the armrest of the couch. Kori so owed her.

She heard the front door of the building open and voices as whoever entered checked in. Shuffling and then the couch bounced as someone collapsed onto it on the opposite end.

He looked at her, as if just realizing that he wasn't alone, then forced a grin. "Hey, Rae."

"Hey, Gar," she replied. She'd almost rolled her eyes at the nickname but he said it so despondently that all she could do was furrow her eyebrows.

Rachel didn't know Gar Logan very well. They knew each other obliquely because Gar was Dick's roommate but their conversations never lasted long. And when they did, one or both of them usually walked away very disgruntled. But she couldn't bring herself to hate him; he was a nice guy as far as she could tell. Besides, the four of them all lived on the same coed floor and shared a bathroom. He was unavoidable. His looks had thrown her for a loop when they first met, though.

He wasn't exactly unusual but he seemed a little mismatched. He wasn't really tall, clocking in at around five foot eight, but he was so lanky that his limbs appeared longer than they actually were. The sides of his head were buzz cut and his blond hair was longer and messier on top with the ends dyed green. He had a ready smile and bright green eyes that didn't go very well with the black design tattooed on his left arm, starting at his elbow and stopping at his shoulder. Depending on the shirt he wore, something red poked out of his collar, hinting at another tattoo. Covering his right arm in an almost exact mirror image of his tattoo, was puffy scarred skin that reached the edge of his neck, opposite the red tattoo. Rumor had it that there'd been an accident, a fire that left him burned but alive, but she'd never heard anything about it from him.

He was usually cheery to the point of being obnoxious, but tonight he just looked sad.

Sure she was going to regret it, Rachel asked, "Are you okay?"

He didn't answer right away. She was about to ask again when he waved his hands at her. "Yeah, course I'm okay. I'm great. What about you? What're you doing down here in the middle of the night?"

Not so subtly changing the subject, she noted. Something was definitely wrong but she decided to go along with it. If he didn't want to talk about it she wasn't going to push it.

"Kori and Dick needed some privacy," she explained. Then something dawned on her. "Wait, if you're here then that means your room is empty. Why didn't they just go there instead of kicking me out? Unbelievable."

Gar smiled. Well, tried to. "I wasn't supposed to come back alone."

It took her a moment to get the meaning behind his words. Her face warmed up. Right. She'd seen him with his arm wrapped around a cute blonde sometimes on campus. A geology major, if she remembered right. She'd always idly thought they looked nice together. "Oh. Um. Where…"

"Well," Gar started, matter-of-factly, "she dumped me. About, oh, four hours ago? We were supposed to go to the midnight carnival, which ends at eleven thirty so it's not really midnight, just late-ish, but before we could leave she ended things, right there. So I went by myself. Won a giant chicken, gave it to a little boy who kept losing. You're wearing shorts."

Rachel looked down at her bare legs, so blindingly pale they could've burned a vampire to death, and self-consciously pulled her legs under her. She tugged the sleeves of her sweatshirt down to cover her hands then casually (she hoped) draped her arms over her legs.

"Yeah," she said. "I was gonna go to sleep."

"I don't think I've ever seen your legs before." He frowned. "If you wear shorts to sleep, how come I've never seen your legs before? We share a bathroom."

"Yeah, us and fourteen other people. I put on sweats before I go to the bathroom."

"Why?"

"I don't like my legs."

"Why not? They're nice. You should wear shorts more often."

She narrowed her eyes at him, not threateningly but like she was trying to see him better. She hadn't noticed at first but his face was flushed and he carried the faint smell of alcohol on him. "Are you drunk right now?"

He screwed up his mouth, thinking. "Maybe just a little. You have a birthmark."

Without looking, Rachel pulled the hem of her shorts down to cover as much of the mark on her leg as she could. Which wasn't much. The birthmark was large, covering half the side of her thigh and hip. It was light purple against her pale skin, like she'd gotten ugly bruises that wouldn't go away.

"Oh," he said knowingly, nodding. "I get it. You're embarrassed by it."

"No I'm not," she said quietly, not looking at him.

"Ashamed, then," he amended. "I used to feel that way about my scars. But I couldn't hide them so I decided not to be ashamed anymore." He grinned and held up his left arm, pointing at the black ink. "Then I got my first tattoo. Figured if people are gonna stare might as well give them a good reason."

Something akin to guilt swirled in her stomach. She could hide her birthmark. Gar couldn't hide his scars. Instead, he embraced them. It was the kind of courage she wished she possessed and she was overcome by the need to get very far away from it.

"You're drunk," she said again.

"I went to a party," he confirmed with a sigh. He dropped his head onto the back of the couch. "Or two. Or four."

Then, without meaning to, she said, "You really liked her."

He stared at the ceiling. "Yeah, I do."

Great. He was emotional. Drunk and emotional. That was never a good combination. If she had a problem dealing with him sober and happy, drunk and emotional was going to blow. On the bright side (the very dim, sun-stuck-behind-the-clouds bright), at least he wasn't a loud drunk. Just sad.

"Um, there, there," she said flatly. "It'll be alright."

He snorted and dropped his head to the side to look at her. "Has anyone ever told you that you suck at comforting people?"

"No," she scoffed. "Because I don't comfort people. Just, I don't know, sleep it off and don't think about it."

"Is that how you handle all your problems? By pretending they don't exist?"

"I'm trying to be nice to you. Don't make me regret it."

"Aw, don't say that, Rae. I'm sure you regretted it the second you asked."

She tried not to look like he was right.

He chuckled then sighed and slapped his hands down on his thighs to push himself to stand. "Okay. Let's go."

He offered her a hand and she frowned at it. "Go where?"

"I can't just let you sit here all night," he said like it was obvious. "There's an empty bed in my room that no one's gonna use tonight. You can."

"Share a room with you," she summed up. "All night. Just the two of us. Alone. While you're drunk and emotional and vulnerable and just might take advantage of the situation."

He sighed and squinted at her. "A lot of words came out of your mouth just now and none of them was no, so. Are you coming?"

Rachel didn't really think for one second that Gar would try anything. Her history with the male gender had left a bad taste in her mouth and forced wariness to be her first reaction to anything involving men. But whatever else she might think about him, Gar wasn't that kind of guy. He was genuine and sincere and currently seriously heartbroken.

Besides, if she watched one more second of MTV she just might attack the television.

"Let's go."

The elevator ride up to the fifth floor was tough for both of them. Gar's face took on a slight green tint, making Rachel hope they reached their floor before he threw up. He was so off balance she had to help hold him up. They stumbled down the hall together like that until they reached his door where she had to fumble awkwardly through his pockets to find his room key. Then finally, she dropped him on the floor.

The room didn't look that different from hers. It had two funny looking desk/bed combos, like someone replaced the bottom bunk with a desk, pressed against either wall with a dresser at the end of each. A window over a small table was in the wall opposite the door and she cracked it open. Gar's side of the room—easily distinguished by the wall of clothes that cluttered the ground around it, the zoology textbooks on the desk, and the odd mix of animal and Playboy posters on the wall—had a funny stench coming from it.

Still on the ground, Gar pulled off his sneakers and threw them haphazardly on the floor. He grunted and dragged himself to his feet as he told Rachel, "You can go ahead and take Dick's bed."

"Thanks." Predictably, she felt a little odd as she climbed the ladder to her best friend's boyfriend's bed. Neither of them would be mad, and it was a thousand times better to the ripe smelling alternative, but it was still weird.

When she reached the top and looked down, Gar stripped off his shirt, his back to her. She bit back a surprised yelp, her eyes widening slightly and face flaming. Then he unbuttoned his jeans and kicked them off to reveal light blue boxers with bright yellow ducks on them. She stared as he climbed the ladder to his bed, the lean muscles on his back doing interesting things. He was so skinny that Rachel had never considered the idea that he might have any muscle on him at all, but evidently she was wrong.

He settled onto his bed and she peeled her eyes away, staring straight ahead, surprised at herself. That had been unexpected.

"You okay over there?" he said as he wrestled with the tangled mess of his blankets.

"This is just…weird, sort of." In more ways than one, she added silently.

"You want to trade?" he offered, spreading his arms wide and gesturing to his bed. "This one doesn't belong to anyone's boyfriend anymore."

"That's okay," she said, settling down. "I'll manage."

"M'kay. Night."

"Good night."

She didn't fall asleep right away and when she did, it was precarious and unsatisfying. She could hear Gar tossing and turning. It didn't feel like a very long time until she opened her eyes but checked the clock on the table under the window, she found that it had been about an hour and a half since they lay down.

She shifted from her back to her side and squinted in the darkness at the other bed. She could just see the outline of Gar's body, one arm slung over his face. He wasn't moving anymore but that didn't mean he was sleeping.

After a minute or two, she closed her eyes again. Then she opened them. Then closed them. It wasn't any of her business. It didn't matter to her if he got any sleep tonight. She didn't care.

Another minute or two passed. Then she huffed and opened her eyes to glare at his bed.

"Gar?" she said softly. Her voice was drowsy; even to her own ears she sounded like she just woke up. "Are you awake?"

Enough seconds ticked by that Rachel was satisfied that he was sleeping, when an exhausted, husky voice mumbled, "Yeah."

Inwardly, she swore. Outwardly, she sighed. "Have you slept at all?"

"Maybe."

She took that as a no.

"I just…" He trailed off then tried again. "I just keep thinking about her. I just, I don't get it. I don't know what I did wrong. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you." _Comforting Gar Take 2,_ she thought. _Off to a good start_. "You probably didn't do wrong anything either. Or maybe you did, I don't know. But it isn't really about you. It was about her. It was her choice, she made it, and now you're the one that has to deal with it."

"I don't know if this is supposed to make me feel better or not."

She didn't either but it was the truth and she told him so. "There's nothing you can do about it now. It happened. Accept it and find a way to move on."

She saw him remove his arm from his face and turn his head to look at her. There wasn't enough light in the room for her to see his face clearly. It made her feel oddly exposed, not knowing what kind of expression he had as he looked at her.

"What if I wanted to try to get her back?"

"Do you think you're going to marry her someday?" she asked somberly.

A pause. "I don't know."

"If you don't think you're going to spend the rest of your life with her, then what would be the point of trying to get her back? She broke up with you once, what's to stop her from doing it again?"

"That's so depressing," he said. "You're a real pessimist, you know. What kind of attitude is that to have about love?"

"If you know so much about it, then don't listen to me. I'm bad at this anyway."

"You're the one that started this conversation."

"You're the one that sat down next to me."

"You didn't have to ask."

"Fine. Next time don't look like the world is about to collapse at any second and I won't ask."

"Fine."

"Good."

She huffed and closed her eyes, adjusting the blanket tighter around her in annoyance. That's what she gets for being "concerned." Last time she does that.

Then, "Hey Rachel?"

"What?" she said sharply.

"Thanks."

She sighed, relaxing, eyes still closed. "Just get some sleep."

"Okay."

* * *

A/N: I have no idea what this is but there will probably be more. I was thinking about how to fit green into normal-looking Gar and then a story(ish-type-thing) showed up. Hope you liked it!


	2. Hide and Seek

I don't own Teen Titans. Don't remind me.

* * *

 **Hide and Seek:** Rachel Roth does not do babysitting. So naturally, she's babysitting.

Rachel Roth did not do babysitting.

Rachel Roth did dead languages, dusty books, and libraries. She avoided socializing at all costs and had never so much as even spoken to anyone under the age of fifteen.

And yet here she was, three pairs of bright young eyes looking up at her innocently waiting for something to happen while she stared back, trying to fend off the disgusted expression that threatened to break out on her face.

Here was Rachel Roth babysitting.

This had to be a joke.

Two boys and one girl sat together on a rather roomy couch while Rachel stood in the middle of the living room. Toys cluttered the floor and there was a wall mounted flat screen TV behind her. Except for clock ticking, the house was completely quiet.

She still had no idea how she got herself into this. She'd shown up expecting something like housecleaning. Instead, a man and a woman opened the door, thanked her for coming on such short notice, and gave her a brief overview of their children before whisking themselves off into the unknown. She already forgot everything they told her about the kids, too hung up on the fact that they existed and were under her care.

Without a word, Rachel pulled her cell out of her pocket and half-turned as she searched through her contacts for the one she needed. Someone answered on the fifth ring.

"You've reached the cellular device of Richard Grayson, he is currently unavailable, Garfield speaking. Perhaps I can be of some assistance."

"Gar?" Rachel said, her irritation mounting. "Where's Dick?"

"Rachel?" he squeaked cheerily. "Hey! What's up?"

"Where's Dick?" she repeated through gritted teeth.

"Uhh, he's a little, uh, preoccupied with not being here."

"I noticed," she snapped back. "Where _is_ he? I need to talk to him."

"Uh, your room?"

She didn't need any more information. Kori was evidently taking advantage of her absence by inviting over some male companionship. Dick must've forgotten his phone in his eagerness to get over there. Figures.

"What do you need him for?" Gar asked. "Maybe I can help."

She glanced at the three kids. "He set me up."

"What, like on a date?"

"No, not like on a date," she hissed. "I took a job he recommended and he neglected to mention certain important details."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that it's babysitting."

The other end went silent. Then Gar erupted into laughter.

Rachel scowled and said nothing until all she could hear was gasping. "Finished?"

"Yeah, yeah," he panted, still giggling. "Sorry, heh…You, babysitting!"

"I'm glad one of us finds this funny," she said. "Meanwhile, the other one has no idea what she's doing."

"Aw, come on, Rae, kids are easy."

She rolled her eyes at the nickname then again at the reassurance. "Easy for you to say. You're not the one here. Why didn't Dick ask you if you're so good with kids?"

"I'm grounded," Gar grumbled. "He saw my grades and put me on study lockdown. He even took away my video games _and_ my laptop. Plus, he's got the whole floor in on it so I can't sneak out. Who does he think he is, my mom? I mean seriously, what does it matter to him if I'm barely pulling a D—"

"I don't care," Rachel cut in. "What about Vic? Or Wally? Or Kole? Or anyone else besides me?"

"I told you, Rae," he said. "The _whole_ floor."

So this was his fault. Of course it was. What would her life be if Gar didn't find some way to even indirectly drive her insane?

Seconds after Rachel hung up on him, the girl (Melvin, her name was Melvin) asked if they could go to the park.

"The park," Rachel echoed then let out a very intelligent, "Uuuh." She weighed her options, decided that maybe a trip to the park was better than sitting in a room staring at each other, and said, "Sure."

She told them to go get ready (whatever that meant) before going into the kitchen. There was a note and three ten-dollar bills stuck to the fridge with a magnet. The note had messily scrawled directions for dinner ("Order pizza") and a phone number at the bottom. She pocketed the money then rummaged through the kitchen for water bottles and some snacks, which she stuffed into a backpack she found. Just to be safe.

Back in the living room, Melvin was helping the little one (Teether, what kind of name was Teether?) into a pair of little sneakers while the other one (Timmy, the only one with a normal name) scurried around the room piling toys onto a ratty blue blanket.

"What is he doing?" Rachel asked Melvin, frowning at him.

"He's picking the toys he wants to bring," she explained as she finished up Teether's shoes.

"All of those? No way, you can't bring all of those," Rachel told him.

Timmy froze, looking up at her, and dropped the kiddy truck onto the floor. His freckled face scrunched up and turned red, then he exploded.

 _"_ _No no no no! Want to bring! Want! To bring! Tooooys!_ "

Rachel smothered her ears with her hands to block out his screams. Melvin went on with business as usual, plucking a sunhat off the ground and sticking it on her head. Teether just watched Timmy curiously as he gnawed on a teddy bear's head (right, that's why his name was Teether).

"Fine!" Rachel snapped and threw her hands in the air. "You can bring two toys, but that's it!"

Timmy stopped crying, his red face a mess of tears and snot, and picked up a plastic dinosaur and a red sports car about the size of his arm without another word.

"Okay, let's go now." She turned to leave but was stopped by a tug at her sweater. It was Teether, barely reaching her mid-thigh even with his hands in the air.

"Up," he squeaked. "Up."

She rolled her eyes and huffed before lifting him and settling him on her hip. "Okay, now—"

 _"_ _Carry me!"_

* * *

It was a nice day to go to the park, with a clear blue sky and shining sun, so everyone went to the park. Barbecues were fired up and parties were taking up space at picnic tables. There was a little league baseball game going on at the far side of the park. In the open grass in between the play structure and the baseball diamonds, there people played soccer or threw footballs or Frisbees. Parents were scattered around the play structure, either gossiping with each other or waving at their kids.

Rachel felt extremely out of place.

She sighed and settled more comfortably on the park bench, keeping a tired eye on the kids. Melvin was on the swings, Timmy raced about the play structure with his dinosaur and racecar, and Teether sat in the sandbox chewing on a plastic shovel instead of digging with it. The walk over had been exhausting. A kid on each hip, one screaming, the other gnawing, and Melvin kept going on about this imaginary friend of hers that she insisted was real.

Rachel needed some help.

She knew just who to call.

Victor Stone was a security monitor of their dorm, Titans Hall, and the fifth floor's resident big brother. Even though he was a senior, he still lived on campus to "pass on his wisdom to the next generation of the Student Loaned." Rachel liked him—not something she could say about a lot of people—and valued his advice even if he could be a little boisterous in his delivery. If anyone could help her figure out her way through this, it was him.

The call picked up on the third ring.

"You've reached the cellular device of Victor—"

 _"_ _Gar!"_

"Rachel? Is that you?"

"Of course it's me, you dolt," she seethed. "Do you even look at caller ID?"

"No."

She pinched the bridge of her nose, a migraine threatening to break out any minute. She almost wanted Gar to be here with her, just so she could smack him in person. "What are you doing with Vic's phone?"

"I maybe might've nicked it off him when he came in here to check on me," Gar answered innocently.

"Have you gotten any studying done?" she asked, annoyed.

"Uhhh, best not talk about that. How goes the babysitting?"

"If I didn't want to have kids before, I now want to stop the rest of the world from reproducing to save anyone else from this kind of suffering."

"C'mon, Rae, kids aren't that bad. All you gotta do is make funny faces. Oh, and jokes! They love jokes! This one never fails. Why did the cookie go to the doctor?"

She sighed and picked at a piece of lint on her jeans.

"You have to ask why," Gar whispered.

She rolled her eyes and with all the joy of someone walking over a bed of broken glass, said, "Why."

"Because he was feeling a little crummy!" He devolved into a fit of high-pitched giggles.

With a shake of her head, she hung up on him. Looked like she was on her own.

After fifteen minutes, Rachel decided that maybe she could handle this after all when a little boy, maybe a little older than Melvin, approached Timmy. The boy ogled Timmy's toys and, from the way the younger boy held them protectively against his chest, apparently asked to see them. Rachel rolled her eyes. That kid definitely needed to learn the meaning of sharing.

She was about to let it go when the older boy made a grab for the toys. Timmy shook his head vigorously. His face turned red and he looked on the verge of another breakdown. Rachel watched, unsure of what to do, until Melvin walked up to them. She couldn't hear what they were saying but she didn't need to. After a few seconds, the little boy shoved Melvin to the ground. That was when Timmy screamed, throwing his toys to the ground, and tackled the older boy to the ground.

Rachel's body moved before she fully registered what she was doing.

"Hey!" She grabbed the back of Timmy's shirt and pried him off the other boy. She held him up, her arms wrapped around his stomach, and he struggled against her flailing his arms wildly.

 _"_ _Let me go let me go let me go! Waaaah!"_

She tried to scoff but it came out as more of a grunt as she tried to dodge an arm that came too close to her face. "Melvin," she said. "Are you okay?"

The girl was already on her feet, swiping off the tanbark that clung to her clothes. "Uh-huh," she said.

"Okay, then let's—"

A shrill voice shrieked, "What do you _think_ you are _doing?"_

Rachel groaned as a woman stormed over to them and helped the other little boy off the ground. There were faint scratch marks on his tear stained face.

Great. A crying boy, his mom, and a kicking and screaming five-year old struggling to get out of her grip. Because that was exactly what she needed.

"Well," Rachel told the woman, "I thought I'd get out of here since it's obvious the trip is over, but I get the feeling you don't have that same thought. But before you even start, if you want to yell at someone for not controlling their kids, I suggest you look in the mirror instead of down your nose. Teach your kid he's not entitled to everything he wants and I'll teach mine that when they stand up for themselves they should go for the groin instead of the face. Okay?"

The woman turned red-faced and seemed too angry to say anything back.

"Okay," Rachel said. "Melvin, grab Timmy's toys then get Teether. We're out of here."

* * *

Dinner arrived around six thirty. The four of them sat together on the floor of the living room in a circle around the pizza box while they ate. They watched a movie Rachel found in their DVD collection that she didn't really mind (what bibliophile can't appreciate the Shakespearian roots of _The Lion King_?). She made a mental note of the special powers television had on children. As an after thought, she tore up Teether's slice of pizza so that he would actually eat it instead of just gnaw on it.

As _The Lion King_ neared its end, Rachel sifted through the DVDs again, in search of another not-so-objectionable movie. But as she did, she noticed Teether yawn widely and Melvin and Timmy's eyelids droop.

"Are you tired?" she asked them.

"No!" Timmy barked.

"What time do you guys usually go to sleep?"

"Fifty o'clock!" he said.

She looked at Melvin.

"Nine o'clock," said the girl.

It was currently a little past eight o'clock and it was then that Rachel realized she had no idea when their parents would be back. Well, she made it this far. Might as well see this through to the end.

She told them to get ready for bed since they probably had a better idea of how to do that than her. Melvin and Timmy trampled over each other up the stairs racing to get to the bathroom first. Rachel called their parents with the number on the bottom of the note she'd found. She left a message to report that the kids were getting ready for bed before picking Teether up off the floor. They went upstairs, past a screeching Timmy pounding on the bathroom door (Melvin had won), and into the room the boys shared. While Teether picked out some pajamas, Rachel tried to shut Timmy up with a joke—unsuccessfully. She decided right then that she would never take Gar's advice again.

After Timmy showered, Melvin broke the news to Rachel that she would have to give Teether a bath.

"What?" Rachel said. "Can't he do it himself?"

Melvin shook her head. "He's too little. Mommy and Daddy always help him."

Rachel eyed the toddler warily. He just giggled up at her and she got the feeling that he was mocking her. With a scoff, she picked him up and carried him at arms length to the bathroom.

"You're going to get me completely soaked, aren't you?" she said accusingly.

He did.

* * *

By the time all three kids bathed, brushed their teeth, dressed for bed, and gave Rachel a mind-numbing headache with all their bickering, it was ten to nine. They sat together on the floor of the boys' room where, despite all their yawning and eye-drooping, they refused to sleep.

"So now what?" she asked them.

Melvin shrugged. "You could tell us a story. Kids like stories."

"A story?" Rachel said. "Are you kidding?"

 _"_ _Story story story story!"_

"Fine!" Her brain clogged and all she could think of was the last thing read the night before: _The Tell-Tale Heart_ by Edgar Allen Poe _._ She made it halfway through before she realized that some time during the story they had huddled closer to her, teeth chattering and whole bodies trembling.

"Uh," Rachel said. "Then he changed his mind about killing the old man, said sorry, and they had a party with cake and ice cream and lived happily ever after. Okay, time for bed."

It took fifteen minutes to get all three of them tucked into bed. She had to put Teether and Timmy in their beds then go to the room next door to put Melvin down. Then all three kids decided they had to go to the bathroom at the same time so while Melvin and Timmy argued over who would go first, Rachel changed Teether's diaper (an experience she was in no rush to repeat). She put them all back into bed again and turned off the light in the boys' room. Timmy cried that he was afraid of the dark so Rachel reassured him that there was no crazy man out to get him, turned on the hall light, and left their door open. After making sure the boys closed their eyes, she went to Melvin's room.

She clicked off her light and was about to leave when Melvin piped up, "Rachel?"

She ground her teeth and tried not to glare at the little blonde head poking out of the blankets. She was thoroughly drained, ready to pass out right where she was standing, and had zero patience left for another one of these kids' whims. "Yes, Melvin?"

"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"

For a moment, Rachel was completely speechless. She'd done absolutely nothing to deserve the kind of trust Melvin was putting in her to protect her from the monsters in her closet but something warm and sweet bloomed in Rachel's chest. She blurted out, "Okay."

She pulled up a chair too small for her next to Melvin's bed. Melvin reached out and clutched Rachel's hand in her small, clammy one and closed her eyes.

"Good night, Rachel," she mumbled.

Certain that no one was watching, Rachel leaned back in the chair and smiled.

* * *

Gar Logan was bored. So bored he was passed bored and actually almost interested in the textbooks staring at him from the desk. It was almost nine thirty; he'd been at this for hours _._

He leaned his chair on the back two legs and linked his fingers behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling. It was plain and white and much more interesting than his textbooks. After a moment, his eyes slid back down to his desk and landed on his cell phone sitting atop his books.

Rachel hadn't called in a while. She seemed a little off earlier; she hadn't even laughed at his joke! Maybe someone should make sure she was okay. And since Gar was free, it might as well be him.

At the prospect of something to do, he let his chair fall back to the ground with a thud and picked up his phone. He was smiling as he looked for her number. His grin widened at each ring. Someone picked up on the sixth.

"Hello?" a small, groggy voice said.

Gar blinked. The voice on the other end was definitely a girl, but not the one he was expecting. She sounded like a little kid. "Uh, Rachel?"

"She's sleeping."

"Oh. Uh, who's this?"

"Melvin."

Must be one of the kids Rachel had to babysit, he concluded. "Hi there, Melvin. My name's Gar."

"Hi."

Not the most inviting of responses. Slightly uncomfortable, Gar was about to end it there when a thought struck him. "Hey, Melvin?"

"Yeah?" She sounded a little miffed that he wasn't hanging up yet but stayed on the line anyway.

"You spent the day with Rachel, right? Did you have fun?"

Melvin didn't even think about it before saying, "Of course! Can I go to sleep now?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. G'night."

Gar leaned back in his chair again like he'd been doing before he called, feeling immensely proud. That little girl had sounded like one satisfied customer.

"I told her that joke never fails."

* * *

A/N: I actually like this. I don't like all of it but I like it. I'm having fun with my college AU. I think I'll keep it. Thanks for reading!


	3. Gar VS That One Creep

Really, my life would be so much easier if I did own Teen Titans. But I don't so it isn't.

* * *

 **Gar VS That One Creep (That Can't Take a Hint):** Gar is in a bad mood and Rachel is having guy trouble.

Gar Logan did not wake up that morning looking to get punched in the face. But sometimes life just works like that.

In retrospect, maybe he deserved it. He hadn't exactly been on his best behavior in the last couple days and dipped his toe on the bad side of just about everyone on the fifth floor (he was already off the deep end with Rachel). Really, he had no good reason for making fun of Dick's excessive use of hair gel or mocking the funny way Kori spoke. But the last straw was probably when he snapped at Rachel.

It wasn't something he'd meant to do. When she wasn't being mean or not laughing at his jokes, he actually liked her. She was smart and clever and sometimes, if he squinted really hard, he was pretty sure they were friends. Besides, she was kind of pretty-jet-black hair stopping just short of her collar bone, dark steady eyes, and soft elegant features that contrasted starkly with her sharp tongue. And Gar didn't make it a habit of disliking pretty girls he shared a bathroom with.

But he'd been in a foul mood when they bumped into each other in the hall. And when Rachel apologized in that snippy, almost condescending way, he _might_ have said a few things he didn't mean. Suffice it to say everyone on the fifth floor had a good reason for giving Gar the silent treatment.

So on the morning Gar woke up not looking to get punched in the face, he got up uncharacteristically early (like the-sky-is-still-dark-because-the-sun-isn't-up-yet early), bought the biggest cup of coffee the campus café had to offer, and wandered campus aimlessly until long after the sun came up. Put simply, he ran away.

When he finished his coffee and walked by every building on campus—twice—he headed back to Titans Hall, resolving to skip all his classes and do nothing but lounge in his bed and be a depressing lump all day.

He forgot about his plan, however, when he saw Rachel standing in front of the doors to their dorm with a disgustingly familiar face. He was gangly and he had greasy black hair that gave off the feeling that he tried way too hard to make it look like he didn't try at all. Gar and the others had seen this guy stalk Rachel before. He was persistent and stubborn and just an all-around nuisance. But when they asked her about it, Rachel told them nothing other than, "I can handle it." His name was Adonis, or something douchey like that.

Gar stepped out of sight so they couldn't see him. Rachel had a look on her face that he knew well. The kind of look that said she was on the end of her rope but he just wasn't getting it or he did get it and was ignoring it completely. Looking at the kind of interaction that got that look out of her from the outside, Gar really hoped he didn't come off as much of a creep as Adonis did.

Suddenly, Adonis reached out and grabbed Rachel's wrist. Gar was about to step in, gathered the air in his lungs to shout, but Rachel really could handle it. She wrenched her wrist out of Adonis's hold and her other hand whipped out to slap his face. As he held his cheek in shock, she spun on her heel before calmly unlocking the door and stepping inside the dorm.

 _Note to self,_ Gar thought. _No touching._

Shaking his head, Adonis turned away from the dorm and started walking. And sure, Rachel could probably handle a guy like this plus ten more, but one glimpse of the look on his face and Gar decided to lend a hand. Because instead of a look of anger, he had a look of admiration. The guy was still smitten.

Gar stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks, with the scariest look on his face he could muster.

Adonis's face contorted with disgust. "Do you want something?"

Gar went closer and leaned into his face. He was a little taller but Gar never let a little thing like height (or weight or muscle density or intelligence) get in the way.

"Leave Rachel alone," Gar said. Did he sound intimidating? He'd never tried to intimidate anyone before. It'd suck if he failed on the first try. (He failed. It sucked.)

Adonis's face twisted up some more and he scoffed. "Whatever. Not that it's any of your business, but if Rachel really wanted me to leave her alone, she'd tell me. Not send some bean pole to do it for her."

There was just so much wrong with that comeback, Gar didn't know where to start.

"You're calling me bean pole?" he said, deciding to start there. "Have you ever seen a mirror? And Rachel has told you to leave her alone. Multiple times. That red handprint on your face? 'Leave me alone' in just about every language. Ever. In the history of the world. And dinosaurs. And, not that it's any of _your_ business, but it is my business."

Adonis clicked his tongue, seeming to ignore every part of what Gar just said except the last bit, and looked him up and down. "What are you, her boyfriend or something?"

"Or something" was what Gar should've said. But Adonis was not the kind of guy to take no for an answer without a reason spelled out in a PowerPoint with pictures, graphs, a solid conclusion, and references from multiple sources. He hardly cared that Rachel told him to get lost herself; what would the warning of some guy who spent most of his time on Rachel's bad side mean to him?

With that conclusion, Gar felt completely justified in saying, "Yeah, I am. So stay away from her. Got it?"

Adonis examined him again, then again. Then snorted.

Gar scowled. His bad mood just got worse. "Is something funny?"

Adonis scoffed. "You seriously think I believe Rachel's taste in guys is that bad? Please. Why would she go for you when she could have a prime piece of beef cake like me?"

 _Because you refer to yourself by things like "prime piece of beef cake,"_ Gar thought, rolling his eyes.

"Seriously," Adonis went on. "Who are you to Rachel?"

"Seriously? _Seriously?"_ Suddenly Gar realized what Rachel must feel like whenever he pestered her continuously even after her fourth warning. He swore right then to give up after the third the next time. He almost snapped at Adonis because the kind of dude that needed more of a reason than "She _really_ doesn't like you" to leave Rachel alone deserved it, but instead, he paused. Then he smirked. "You really wanna know what kind of relationship me and Rachel have?"

Adonis rolled his eyes with an exaggerated kind of flair Gar figured he lived for. "Duh."

Gar leaned in even closer and said, "Let's just say, if Rachel found out I told you where her birthmark is, she wouldn't share her shampoo with me anymore." Which was all completely true (which reminded him, he needed to buy more shampoo). Then, just because he couldn't resist, Gar wiggled his eyebrows, winked, and nudged Adonis with his elbow.

The look on Adonis's face made Gar's day exponentially better.

He laughed and clapped Adonis on the shoulder as he stepped past him. "Better luck next time, dude."

Chuckling, Gar walked away feeling very proud of himself. He wondered who of his friends wasn't mad at him enough for him to brag about his wonderful chivalrousness.

But before his mood could improve too much, Adonis grabbed Gar's shoulder and spun him right into his fist.

* * *

Gar had never been punched in the face before. He'd never gotten into a fight before. Sure, there had been a few close calls on both fronts but usually Gar was smart enough to either shut his mouth before anything else stupid came out of it or run away before fists could start flying.

But now that both had happened, Gar decided he didn't like it. Getting punched and getting into a fight both officially made it into the top ten things Gar never wanted to do again.

He touched the wet paper towel to his cut lip and hissed at the sting of it. He wasn't really good at this first aid stuff but he couldn't exactly find anyone to help him out. Too many questions and lectures. So he figured giving the cuts a cursory cleaning in the bathroom would just have to be good enough.

According to the bathroom mirror, though, he was pretty messed up. He'd had to stuff a paper towel up one nostril to stop the bleeding, there was a cut on his temple in addition to the one on his lip, and the other side of his face was scratched up from when Adonis shoved it into the pavement. There were a few more cuts on his knuckles from some of the punches he'd gotten in. He had a nasty bruise under his eye and he couldn't take a whole breath without wincing because of the bruises on his side. Dull pain clung to the scar on his shoulder from all that arm swinging he'd done. He'd had to take off his shirt because all the blood that got on it made it stick to his chest (not all of it was his, he was proud to report). He hurt in ways he didn't know were possible.

For such a scrawny little scarecrow, Adonis really packed a punch.

Gar grunted as he pressed the paper towel against the cut on his temple. "Maybe I can tell people I fought off a gang of bikers at a bar or something."

"Yeah, that one'll go over well."

Gar screamed—a very manly, unafraid, totally cool scream. And there in the mirror, standing in front of the bathroom door with an arched eyebrow and a first aid kit, was Rachel.

"Oh my god!" Gar gasped, turning to face her. He pressed his hand against his chest like he was afraid his heart would leap out of his rib cage at any second. "Geezus, Rae. What's your problem? I could've had a heart attack!"

She rolled her eyes. "Because a little jump scare after the world's most pathetic brawl is enough to give someone a heart attack." She gave him a look as she set the first aid kit down on the counter next to him.

Gar paused then chuckled awkwardly and scratched the back of his head, avoiding eye contact. "What are you talking about?"

"My window faces the courtyard," she said.

The courtyard. Where five minutes ago, Gar participated in the world's most pathetic brawl that was broken up by a passing janitor. (She'd been the strongest fifty-year-old Gar had ever met.)

He chuckled a little more. "Oh. So…how much of that did you actually see?"

The corner of her mouth twitched as she washed her hands. When she reached across him for a paper towel, she was definitely smirking at him in the mirror. "I tuned in somewhere before you started pulling his hair but after he smashed your face into the ground."

She threw the towel away and he frowned at her when she came back. "When you put it like that, I sound so…"

"Pathetic," she finished. She wet a fresh paper towel and turned to him. "Yeah. Pretty much."

She raised the paper to his face and he flinched out of the way. "What are you doing?" he said, a little miffed at being called pathetic. Twice. In twenty seconds.

"I don't trust you to take care of this by yourself," she said bluntly. She grabbed his chin a bit too roughly and held his face in place while she cleaned it more gently than expected.

She had to crane her neck and reach up higher than looked comfortable, and since it didn't look like she was going leave him alone any time soon, he decided to be at least a little cooperative. With a sigh and the beginning of a protest from Rachel, he hopped onto the counter and leaned his elbows on his knees to give her an easier reach. She hummed and continued cleaning his face.

Gar still wasn't up to eye contact so the first thirty seconds he kept his eyes anywhere but on her face and glanced at her for a fraction of a second before settling on closing his eyes. He felt her hesitate for a heart beat but not long enough for him to think too hard about it.

For the next fifteen minutes, while Rachel cleaned his cuts, dabbed antibiotic cream on his face, and finished him off with some bandages, they said nothing. Gar sat quietly the entire time—longer than either of them really thought he was capable of. When she finished his face, she moved on to his knuckles. He opened his eyes and watched her hands as she cleaned the cuts on his. They were nice as far as hands went, smooth and pale and long fingered. Forcing them to do something like this made him feel worse than was really necessary.

"Thanks," he said after forever.

She barely spared him a glance as she worked. "This is your own fault, you know."

"I know."

"I told you I could handle Adonis on my own. I'm a big girl and I don't need any guys alpha male-ing over me."

"I'm sorry." And, since he was apologizing, he added, "And I'm sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean to call you—I mean, I don't think you're a, um, you know—"

"A frigid heartless bitch that feeds on the souls of newly born puppies and bathes in the blood of people who turn in their library books late?"

He hung his head. "Yeah. That."

"Mm. I'm not the only one you should be apologizing to."

"I know."

She finished bandaging his knuckles and looked at him almost academically. Like she was trying to read him like one of her books. "We should find some ice for your bruises."

It was then Gar remembered that he wasn't wearing a shirt. "Oh. Yeah."

He was about say something else when he noticed her eyes linger on his chest a little too long. And as much as he would've liked to think that his rippling muscles were just that irresistible, her eyes were too steady to be admiring anything.

At first, he felt his stomach drop—yet another person too struck with horror by the scar covering his right shoulder to continue having a normal conversation with him. He'd like to say that kind of thing happened so often that it stopped bothering him, but really, he'd be lying. It was just another reminder of how different he was.

But when he gathered the air in his lungs, prepared to laugh it off with some stupid joke even though he felt like screaming instead, he realized that Rachel's eyes weren't on the scar. They were on the four small red paw prints tattooed over his heart.

And that fact alone left Gar gaping at her open mouthed like an idiot. A look that went very well with the cuts and bruises, he was sure.

She noticed him staring and looked away, packing up the first aid kit. "Sorry. I've just never seen that one before."

"N-no, it's fine," he stammered. He almost added that that was the point. The scar on his shoulder and the tattoo on his arm were for show. The ink on his chest was for him.

And then, because he saw the question form behind her eyes but instead of asking she wondered aloud where they could find ice, he almost told her. He could feel the words building up in his chest and they almost bubbled out of his mouth. He almost told her about how the four paw prints represented his four parents. He almost told her about being adopted by two wonderful people after the accident that gave him his scar and killed his birth parents when he was eight. He almost told her that tomorrow was the tenth anniversary of that accident and that was why he'd been acting like a total jerk lately. And, because even when he didn't say anything his mouth kept going without him, he almost told her she was pretty.

But before he could say anything, the bathroom door flew open. He froze for a split second before scrambling to throw his shirt back on. Being half naked in front of Rachel was one thing; being half naked in front of about half of the fifth floor was another.

"Oh my goodness!" Kori cried. She ran forward and grasped his face, jerking it this way and that. "Friend, are you okay?"

"Are you kidding?" Jinks said, snickering. "Look at him. He totally got his ass handed to him."

"Looks like you put up a fight, though," Karen said proudly.

"Don't encourage this," Vic scolded.

"Maybe we should," Wally said mischievously. "Then next time he might have a chance."

"Who did this?" Roy demanded. "I'll teach him a lesson or two."

"More violence isn't the answer, Roy," Garth said.

Then, almost as if they forgot why they were all here in the first place, they shouted over each other, ignoring Gar completely. He was just glad Kori let go of his face. That girl was stronger than she looked.

He looked at Rachel. "Did you call them?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, like he was crazy for thinking she'd call so many people into such a cramped space at one time. "I texted Dick. It's not my fault Kori was right there."

As if on cue, Dick appeared, complete with crossed arms and unreadable expression. "Are you okay?"

Gar got the feeling he was going to get grounded again. "I'll live."

Dick studied him quietly then nodded, clapped Gar on the back (harder than he probably needed to), and declared, "Dinner's on Gar tonight!"

All the shouting turned into cheers as everyone poured out the door, leaving Gar and Rachel alone in the bathroom like they were two minutes ago, before the whirlwind of people came in.

Gar thought of his wallet and wished Dick had grounded him instead. "We live with a lot of people."

Rachel hummed in agreement and started following after them. She paused in the doorway before turning to look at him. "By the way," she said. "Thanks."

He blinked. "For what?"

The look she gave him then—steady eyes going soft around the edges and the sides of her mouth going up just a teeny tiny fraction of a bit—it made him want to scream in a completely different way from before.

He decided he'd wake up every day waiting for a punch in the face if it got her to give him that look every time.

"For thinking you had to stick up for me," she said. "You're a good friend."

When he finally got his breathing under control, he grinned and said, "Dude. We're totally BFFs now."

"And there goes the moment."

* * *

A/N: Alternative chapter titles include "Another excuse for Rachel to surreptitiously check out a half naked Gar" and "Gar has a tragic backstory so I'll just leave this here" but they were both too long.

Cameos because other people live there too! Yay! Although I have to admit, the ending to this is pretty weak. I'll work on it. (I suck at endings.)


	4. Perfect (Not So Much)

I don't own Teen Titans so stop asking.

* * *

 **Perfect (Not So Much):** Kori and Dick are perfect but even they have problems.

Kori Anders and Dick Grayson were the perfect couple. Kori was an international student from a small country, tucked somewhere between eastern Europe and western Asia. Rumor had it she was some sort of princess and came to school in America to learn public relations but it was a topic she somehow managed to avoid talking about. Dick majored in business and was apparently some sort of heir to a major corporation headed by his guardian. His guardian was also an alumnus of Justice University and had donated so much money they named a building after him: Wayne Hall.

They were perfect individually and perfect together and sometimes it got on Rachel's nerves.

After the third time that month Kori stood her up at the library for an after lunch study session, Rachel grumbled to herself as she made her way back to the dorm (after studying by herself for an hour and a half, of course). This was just the way things were. Either Kori blew her off completely or she dragged Rachel along so they could both spend time with Dick. Rachel didn't mind his company, and he was probably the most levelheaded 18-year-old boy she knew, but that didn't mean Rachel enjoyed having him around whenever she hung out with Kori. Sometimes Rachel wanted to be with her best friend—not Dick's girlfriend.

Resolving to read out all her frustrations with her battered copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ , Rachel stepped into her room and dropped all her study supplies at her desk.

Then jumped nearly three feet in the air when a loud sniffle came from the other bed.

When the danger of her heart jumping out of her chest passed, Rachel stared at the lump of blankets on Kori's bunk that looked a lot like her friend.

"Kori," Rachel said, trying to stave off the irritation in her voice, "what are you doing here? I called you, like, five times in the last hour. We were supposed to meet at the library, remember? You…Are you crying?"

At that, Kori flew off the bed so fast Rachel barely had time to blink before Kori nearly bowled her over and sobbed into her shoulder. Rachel's arms hung limply at her sides as she worried for safety of her spine. Kori was stronger than she looked.

Something kick started in Rachel's brain and she brought up her hands to gingerly pat Kori on the back.

"There, there," she said hesitantly. "It, um, it'll be all right."

(She hadn't gotten much better at the whole comforting thing.)

After about five minutes, Kori calmed down enough to follow Rachel to the bathroom (after Rachel staked it out to make sure no one was there). Kori washed the tears and dripping make-up off her face and Rachel was once again struck with how beautiful she was. Even with puffy red eyes and a splotchy complexion, wearing an oversized T-shirt and sports shorts (which both looked suspiciously like Dick's), Kori looked like she belonged on the cover of _Vogue_.

Rachel asked if she'd eaten anything today and when she said no, Rachel took her to the campus café, Young Justice, and bought her a pastry and a large caffeinated drink.

When it seemed like Kori had settled down enough to have a coherent conversation, Rachel asked, "Is everything okay?"

One final sniffle, and Kori sat straight in her chair with her head held high and in a steady, if a little nasally, voice said, "Dick and I have been having some troubles."

"Oh," Rachel said because she hadn't realized Kori and Dick ever had troubles past "There are only 24 hours in a day for us to spend together." It was comforting to know that even the perfect couple had a few chinks to work out. But she thought that was a cruel to think so she asked, "Want to talk about it?"

Kori did.

Rachel might not have had the whole comforting thing down, but she was born a good listener. Mostly because she had nothing helpful to say about people's troubles, but that was beside the point.

Especially since it seemed like Kori had an entire relationship's worth of feelings that she wanted to get off her chest.

She loved Dick—despite the relatively little time they'd spent together, she was completely sure of the way she felt. And though it was clear that Dick felt the same way, sometimes she was overwhelmed by the degrees of difference between their feelings. Sometimes when they were together, it was like he was somewhere far away and whenever she asked he would just tell her it was nothing for her to worry about. It wasn't in her nature to push too hard and it wasn't in his nature to volunteer personal information and so they'd been stuck in a sort of limbo, with him ignoring her obvious curiosity and her pretending she wasn't curious. Things came to a head this morning, when she'd unintentionally pushed too far. There'd been yelling on both sides, someone stormed out, and at least two doors slammed.

By the time she finished, Kori was admirably keeping herself from falling off the brink of tears and Rachel felt like a horrible friend. Kori had been in pain this whole time and here was Rachel, bitter about being the third wheel.

"Maybe you should try telling him how you feel," Rachel said, since it seemed like a good time to say something. She nearly flinched when Kori turned bright green hopeful eyes on her, like anything else that came out of her mouth would solve all her problems. _No pressure though,_ Rachel thought. "Um. Maybe, instead of making it about him and what he doesn't want to tell you, you should try talking to him about how you feel when he locks you out like that. If he knows it's hurting you, he'll probably work on not doing that."

"Do you truly believe so?" Kori said.

"If he doesn't then I'll be the one talking to him."

Kori beamed and reached over to put her hand over Rachel's. "Thank you, Rachel. You are a true friend."

Rachel wasn't sure she deserved the warmth in Kori's eyes. She doubted Kori was as cheered up as she appeared to be. There was something to the smile plastered on Kori's face that, while sincere, still seemed a little forced. Rachel wanted to say something else, something to let her know that everything was going to work out but the words caught in her throat—Kori wasn't the kind of person that appreciated hollow assurances. But Rachel wanted to do more than just listen, be logical, and buy food. She wanted to make sure that Kori was completely fine, not just marginally better, but she supposed that wasn't what Kori wanted. Maybe some people didn't need to be cheered up when they felt bad. They just needed a step up to fix their own problems.

"Thanks," Rachel said, feeling mildly awkward. She patted Kori's hand with her other one. "You too."

Kori kept grinning without saying a word, all her attention trained on Rachel, who felt her face slowly heating up.

"Okay," she said, sliding her hand out from under Kori's. "That's enough."

Then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, Gar Logan appeared out of nowhere and fell into an empty chair, dropping his backpack on the ground and a large cup of coffee on the table, with two straws hanging from his mouth as he clapped his hands together and said, "Look! I'm a walrus!"

Rachel stared at him, caught somewhere between confusion and anger, and was about to settle on anger when Kori burst out laughing. Gar started making barking noises as he flopped his hands around, making Kori laugh even harder. When Kori laughed so hard she gripped her stomach and wiped tears from her eyes, Rachel figured she could forgive Gar for his idiocy just this once. Clearly, he'd set out to make Kori smile and he'd gotten the job done.

After about five minutes of this chaos, Gar pulled the straws out of his mouth and threw them on the table. He grinned and sipped his drink like nothing happened. "So," he said. "What's up?"

"Should you be drinking that much caffeine?" Rachel asked because she didn't want to answer and she was pretty sure he shouldn't.

He shushed her and put a finger to her mouth, which she graciously slapped away instead of breaking.

"Just don't tell Dick," Gar said happily. "He's got me on a tight caffeine leash." He leaned back in his chair and downed the rest of the coffee then slammed it on the table with a content sigh.

"It's not like you need it," Rachel said. "Playing video games all day doesn't require you to be that alert."

"You've never played with Wally," he replied. "And for your information, I was actually going to the library. To _study._ 'Cause I'm a good student."

She raised an eyebrow.

"And Vic was singing with his door open again and I had to get out of there before he completely ruined 'Uptown Funk' for me."

Kori giggled.

"Do you even know where the library is?" Rachel asked him.

"Course I do!" He waved his hand vaguely in the opposite direction of where the library was. "It's over, you know, there. By that one building. With the windows…and the trees. Forget about that. When do you babysit next? I got this new joke Melvin's gonna love."

"Okay, quit calling me while I'm _working_ so you can talk to someone with the same mental age as you," Rachel said, scowling. "It's bad enough I have to deal with you and your stupid jokes here."

"Hey!" Gar said, affronted. "I don't tell stupid jokes!"

She rolled her eyes. "And stop stealing my phone and stop teaching Melvin how to steal my phone. No more trading weird pictures with me as the go-between."

"How else are we supposed to do it? She's not old enough for her own phone."

Kori laughed and Rachel glared at her. "Don't encourage him."

Kori nodded but there was something to her smile—a different something than the sad one from earlier—that made Rachel frown.

"What?" she said.

Kori glanced between the two of them before she said, "I heard something the other day concerning your relationship. You are closer than I thought."

Rachel's frown deepened. "Relationship? Close? With Gar? What are you talking about?"

By the realization that dawned on Gar's face, it seemed like he knew exactly what she was talking about. He made a cutting motion at his neck to tell Kori to stop but it was too late.

"What is she talking about?" Rachel asked him, crossing her arms and raising one eyebrow.

He avoided her gaze. "Uuuummm…?"

"The boy that bothered you not long ago," Kori said. "He has been telling people that he 'kicked the ass' of your boyfriend."

"My—who?" She looked at Gar and whatever expression was on her face was enough to make him freeze in terror. _Good._

He laughed uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head. "Heh. Um. That is a funny story, actually, and I'd love to tell it one day but right now I gotta—there's—see ya!"

Then he took off running.

Kori looked genuinely surprised by their reactions. "I am sorry. Did I say something wrong?"

"Don't worry," Rachel said icily, glaring at Gar's retreating back. "I'm just going to kill him later."

* * *

The fifth floor bathroom was almost always blissfully empty Saturday mornings and Rachel always took full advantage of the privacy and lazily went through her morning routine. It almost reminded her of the old days when she had an entire bathroom to herself. This Saturday, however, as she closed the door to her room, she glanced up at the exact same time Gar glanced up from closing the door to his room. The only thing that told her that he'd just rolled out of bed was his lack of pants. His hair was messy, but it was always messy, and a bright smiled spread across his face when he saw her, as happy as always despite it being morning.

He greeted her cheerily, if a little groggily. She returned it absently, eyes glued to his boxers. She didn't mean to stare but really, who even owns purple boxers with zebra stripes?

"Bathroom?" he guessed, pointing down the hall.

She nodded. "Morning breath."

He grinned. "We have so much in common."

She glowered at him. "I still haven't forgiven you." She turned away from him towards the bathroom.

He caught up to her easily. "So where's Kori? Saturday mornings she usually has to drag you out of bed away from some stupid book that kept you up the night before."

She scowled at him. "I don't read stupid books."

He smiled and shrugged.

"Where's your alarm?" she said. "You usually can't get out of bed without Dick to nag you out because you're just plain lazy."

He frowned thoughtfully at that. "I don't know. I woke up and he was gone."

"Same here."

At that moment they reached the bathroom. Gar opened the door partway before they both paused. The sound of a shower going sounded through the otherwise empty room, accompanied by a few squeaks of wet skin on wet tile and an airy giggle.

Without a word, Gar closed the door quietly and they both took a step back.

They found their missing roommates.

And, apparently, they weren't fighting anymore.

Rachel wondered if her face was as pink as Gar's right now.

He cleared his throat then said, "You know. I read somewhere that brushing your teeth half an hour after breakfast is good too."

"Reading? You? That sounds reliable."

He gave her a quick glare. "Breakfast?"

She opened her mouth to refuse when low breathy moan echoed from the bathroom.

Face definitely flaming now, she said, "Only if you put on pants."

"You take the fun out of everything."

* * *

A/N: This ended up very differently from how it started but this way works better. It's a short one but I hope you liked it. I like the idea that Rachel and Gar always end up being the third wheels. Oh, and other characters! (Well, character.) Kori's not always this weepy, I swear, but you know. Sometimes you just got to let it out and I figure she's the kind of person that would let it all out. By the way, I bumped up the rating because college kids swear. (Young Justice cameo! Whoo!)

Also, I'm going to make it through this whole fic without giving the kids a last name because if there's one thing I hate more than coming up with first names, it's coming up with last names, so there.

Um...yeah. That's it. See you next time!


	5. Bed Bugged

Presenting the owner of: Nothing.

* * *

 **Bed Bugged:** Gar wants to sleep but Rachel needs some help.

Gar Logan and Wednesdays did not get along. But it wasn't his fault. He was a complete gentleman. Wednesdays were just a bitch.

Every Wednesday, he woke up at 6:30 in the morning for an eight o'clock class because it took over half an hour to walk from the dorms to the classroom. After that class finished (late—every. Single. Class.), he wasted time in Young Justice with a coffee the size of his arm or huddled in the corner of the library snoring, until two back-to-back classes that started at one. Then he raced across campus for a three-hour lab that started at five and by the time that finished (early, if he was lucky, which was only half the time), he was worn out and hungry and only made it back to the dorms by the magnetic pull his bed had on him.

Everyone was at dinner when Gar finally returned and the fifth floor of Titans Hall was deserted. This was fine by him; the first few Wednesdays he'd tried having dinner with his friends but those only ended in him falling asleep on his tofu burger. On Wednesdays, the call of his bed was louder than the growl of his stomach.

Just as Gar jammed his room key into the lock (after a few groggy and embarrassing misses), there was a high shriek and one of the doors down the hall flew open. Someone ran out of the room and threw themselves at the opposite wall, watching the door ease closed over their shoulder.

After a moment, Gar realized it was Rachel.

Another moment, and suddenly Gar wasn't as exhausted as he was five seconds ago.

Because there was Rachel, her silky hair mussed and chest heaving slightly, wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt and shorts. _Short_ shorts.

He'd seen Rachel in shorts before. He tried to block out as much of the night his (ex)girlfriend dumped him as possible—which wasn't all that hard considering he'd been drunk for most of it—but he remembered Rachel. He'd stumbled into the dorm lounge at two in the morning hadn't noticed her sitting alone on the couch after her room had become a "Couples Only" Zone. He'd been sad and she'd made a pitiful attempt to comfort him. She'd been embarrassed by her birthmark that covered her left side but he'd said her legs were nice. Then she had to help him up to his room because he'd been too drunk to walk straight. The next morning he'd groaned into his pillow with belated embarrassment.

And because he'd seen her in shorts before, he blamed the fact that he was still partially exhausted for the way just the sight of her legs was enough to keep him glued to the spot.

Rachel took a long slow breath and finally seemed to realize that she wasn't alone.

Gar regained something that might've been composure and waved. "Hey."

"Hi," she said, snippy. She took a deep breath, crossing her arms over her stomach, and suppressed a shudder as glared at her door. It was still open a crack because the door hung a little crooked on the hinges and usually had to be forced closed. Fortunately for Rachel since these doors locked automatically and the lanyard she kept her key on was nowhere in sight. She was so intent on scowling at her door like it had personally offended her that she seemed to forget all about Gar. Which was cool because he wasn't sure how coherent a conversation he could have with what little caffeine was still in his system combined with the odd effect her legs seemed to have on him.

At the same time though, the opportunity to make this Wednesday infinitely better had just presented itself in the form of a begging-to-be-messed-with Rachel Roth.

Gar dropped his backpack on the floor and left the key in the lock. As he walked over, he had to remind himself what would happen if she caught him trying to get a better look at the birthmark on her leg. "What're you doing?" he asked in a singsong voice.

She took another breath and tried to hunch her shoulders and stand taller at the same time. It was a skill he wasn't sure she mastered. "I was…working," she said. "And I wanted to take a break. Get some fresh air."

"Fresh hallway air?" he asked, smiling. "Barefoot?"

She sent him the same look she gave her door. Instead of being scared (like a normal, non-Wednesday Gar would've been), all he thought was that it was a wonder the paint on the door hadn't peeled under that glare.

"Did you eat already?" he said, refusing to let this conversation die. It was bound to get more entertaining if he just pushed hard enough. (It wasn't like he just wanted to look at her legs some more. That wasn't it at all.)

"Yeah." She started to look away but her eyes flicked back to his face. The corners of her mouth tugged down and her eyes narrowed slightly, head tilting like she was trying to get a better angle to dissect him with her eyes.

It was out of a sense of preservation, not fear, that he looked away—and far, far away from Rachel's legs.

"Yeah," she said again, the look slipping as she relaxed. "I have an essay due next week and I wanted to get an early start on it."

"Oh." He paused. "So…the screaming was just for kicks?"

"I—" She scowled at him. "I did not scream."

He smiled and held his pointer finger and thumb about an inch apart. "You screamed a little bit."

The red that flooded her cheeks took him by surprise. She glared at him again, but matched with the blush it just looked (dare he even think it?) endearing.

"There was no screaming," Rachel said sharply. "I was just…surprised."

His smile widened despite his attempts to smother it. He didn't want to ruin this moment by agitating her more but this was just too good. "By what?"

Her frown deepened and she looked away. "A…thing."

"What thing?"

After a long time, she mumbled something under her breath.

Gar made a show of leaning down and cupping a hand around his ear to hear her better. "What was that?"

Her jaw clenched. "A giant…"

"Hmmmm?"

She glared at him. "A giant cockroach."

He waited then let out a short laugh. "What, is that it?"

"It was a _giant_ cockroach!"

"A little bug scared you out of your room?"

"I was not 'scared out of my room.' I was _surprised._ "

"By a bug?"

"By a mutant. I'm pretty sure that thing has been eating the rats."

He scoffed. Girls always said things like that. He guessed even the kind of girl that read Stephen King whenever she wanted to wind down ran away at the sight of creepy-crawlies.

Rachel's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits when she looked at him. "You didn't just think I said that because I'm a girl, did you?"

Now that was just scary. "Uuuh…"

"Fine, then, Mister Macho," she said. "You go in there and get rid of it."

He blinked. "What?"

"Apparently I'm just imagining things," she said. "My fragile female constitution just couldn't handle the sight of a small little bug so I must yield to the indomitable fortitude of my gallant male counterpart and insist that he rescue me from my own feminine shortcomings."

At this point in their acquaintanceship, Gar knew that Rachel threw out big words strung together in long sentences to confuse people whenever she wanted to passive-aggressively get her way.

It worked.

Gar had never been in Rachel and Kori's room before but, really, after a cursory look around he decided he wasn't really missing out on much. It looked like his and Dick's, though you could probably see more of the floor in here and there was a pretty smell hanging in the air. One look at the dark sheets on the bed to the right and the row of books neatly arranged behind a half-open laptop on the desk under it, along with a stack of textbooks on the floor, and it was clear which side was Rachel's. He was tempted to take this opportunity to snoop—books couldn't be the only thing Rachel had—when he caught movement in the corner of his eye.

He looked down.

Then ran out yelling.

If Rachel were the kind of person to burst out laughing, she would have at the sight of Gar pressing himself against the hallway wall next to her, the same way she'd fled her room. As it was, though, the grin on her face that showed all her teeth and the actual _twinkle_ in her eye was about the same thing.

"Sh-shut up!" Gar's voice cracked and he bit his tongue. "Gah, what the hell was that thing? No way that was a normal cockroach! I mean—what the hell? Dude! Jeez." He shuddered with his whole body, his sharp exhale turning into a disgusted groan. "Well," he said, when he finally got that out of his system. He turned to leave. "Good luck with that."

"Whoa!" With lightning fast reflexes and superhuman strength he didn't know she possessed, Rachel's hand whipped out and yanked on the back of the collar of his T-shirt, stopping him in his tracks and crushing his trachea at the same time.

"What the hell!" he choked, spinning to force her hand off. He looked down at her and the glare he was about to give her turned into a look of petrified fear. She was much better at being intimidating than him.

At least she wasn't laughing at him anymore.

"You're not leaving me with that thing," she said so seriously you would have thought there was a serial killer in her closet instead of a cockroach on her floor.

"But—did you see it?" he said weakly. "It could crush me to death!"

And, believe it or not, the look on her face went from intimidating to downright terrifying.

Gar whimpered. The question became what was he more afraid of: a mutant cockroach the size of Texas, or Rachel?

The choice was clear, and he'd been psyching himself up for a showdown with Gigantour, when the staircase door opened and into the hall came Kole and Jericho.

Kole had short orange hair that was that practically glowed and cheerful blue eyes set in a heart shaped face. Jericho had soft features, fur-like blond hair that curled at the ends, and round blue eyes framed with dark lashes. Jericho was just barely taller than Rachel and Kole was just barely taller than five feet. They were both slim and small, and even when they stood next to each other it was hard to tell who was prettier.

Gar met Jericho when they collided in the hall the day everyone moved in. He babbled apologies and bent to pick up all the stuff he'd knocked out of Jericho's. He'd been so nervous and jittery he hadn't realized that Jericho was trying to get his attention until Kole stepped in and said kindly, "He's trying to tell you he can't hear you."

Gar stood ramrod straight, face burning, and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Sorry!" only to feel like an insensitive moron when he remembered that Jericho wouldn't have been able to hear him no matter how loud he yelled. (Jericho could lip read if he talked slowly but that didn't make him feel much better.)

It turned out that Kole's parents were deaf so she was fluent in sign language and that she and Jericho both liked food spicy enough to turn your tongue to ash. They hit it off right away.

Later on, they found out Vic had started learning sing language after he'd heard Jericho was on his floor ("How am I supposed to advise him if I can't talk to him.") and was excited that Kole could help him. Herald, Jericho's roommate, joined the lessons so Jericho wouldn't be the one to always accommodate him. And Gar, still reeling from their first meeting, sat in too. Eventually everyone on the fifth floor picked up some of it. None of them were particularly skilled and they needed Kole's help more often than not, but a pen and paper got the job done just as well.

"Hey guys!" Kole said sunnily. Her hands moved smoothly as she spoke. "Why are you standing here?"

"There's a giant—thing in Rachel's room," Gar said. He spread his arms out wide, nearly elbowing Rachel in the face in the process.

She slapped his arm away and scowled at him and he realized then that she was standing closer than she had been before. She'd pulled her sleeves over her hands and pressed her left arm against her side so that the sleeve hung over her birthmark. The birthmark she didn't like but refused to admit she didn't like and did everything to hide, like stand so close to Gar they were almost touching so that she could use him to block it.

Kole smiled but drew her eyebrows in. "Thing?"

Looking almost pained, Rachel signed the word for bug.

Kole giggled. "Is that it?"

"It's a huge bug!" Gar said defensively, almost hitting Rachel again when he spread out his arms. She hit him again, harder, and glared.

Jericho grinned and pointed at Kole, shaking his head. _Not afraid,_ he signed.

"Oh, yeah," she agreed. "I can take care of it for you."

Gar and Rachel spoke over each other as they protested but neither of them made a move to stop Kole when she went into Rachel's room. Gar, Rachel, and Jericho watched the door close behind her then waited. Jericho was smiling the whole time, looking strangely proud. Meanwhile, Gar made it about halfway through Kole's eulogy ("She was a brave girl but she never stood a chance against that monster.") when the door opened again not even a minute later.

"It's safe now," Kole announced with the same grin she'd had on earlier. "Wow, that thing was actually huge!"

"You—" Gar choked. "What'd you do with it?"

"I threw it out the window." Her smile faltered. "Oh, no. Cockroaches can fly, right? I hope I didn't hurt it."

"How did you even pick it up?" Gar said. "That thing was like twice your size!"

"I am going to do your laundry for a month," said Rachel.

Kole chuckled. "You don't have to, really. It was no problem."

Jericho tapped her arm and signed something too fast for Gar to catch but it made Kole laugh. Gar glanced at Rachel, who shook her head and shrugged.

Before either of them could ask, Kole excused her and Jericho, explaining that he'd promised to help her with math, and they went to his room with a last good night over their shoulders.

"So much courage in such a small body," Gar said with a sigh. "She deserves a statue in her honor or, like, a cake."

Rachel hummed, stepping back so they weren't standing so close anymore. "So we're going to just ignore the fact that you ran out of the room screaming and then sent Kole in to do the hard work. Right?"

His neck and ears burned and he floundered with his words for a second before almost shouting, "You did too!"

"We're going to ignore that too." She glared at him but it didn't seem very sincere. In fact, as she dropped her head and let her hair fall into her face, it almost looked like she was fighting off a smile.

Before Gar could fully register what he was seeing, she straightened and pushed her hair back, expression back to its default neutral. His eyes followed her hands down to her sides and landed on her legs, lingering as his mind filled with words like "holy" and "moley." He dragged his eyes away a second or two later, hoping he hadn't been too obviously staring but one look at Rachel's face and he knew he'd failed.

Her eyes narrowed at him, one eyebrow raised, as she tilted her head to one side and crossed her arms.

Gar looked away, cleared his throat, and wondered how his head didn't explode with how fast all the blood rushed to his face.

"Well," Rachel said evenly, "if you're finished ogling my legs, I still have an essay to write."

"Right. No, yeah. I'll just—be—yeah."

She rolled her eyes as she turned away and he took that as his official dismissal. He started towards his room and scratched hard at the back of his head—maybe he could claw out his mortification. Sure, he'd always thought Rachel was attractive but in the sort of way you notice the girl in your history class had nice eyes. There was a sort of detachment from thinking that that did not involve outright drooling over her legs. Now Rachel was going to think he was a creep along with an idiot.

He peeked over his shoulder and almost fell on his face.

Rachel was still standing in her doorway, half turned and watching him. She flinched just a little when their eyes met and looked away. It was the first time he had ever seen her look so awkward.

"Good night," she said and slammed the door.

His feet didn't kick-start for a few seconds and he almost walked right past his door. "Night," he mumbled. He nodded. "Yeah. I'm tired. That's it. Night."

And when he finally crawled into bed ten minutes later, he did not lie there for a whole hour thinking about how adorable an awkward Rachel was.

* * *

A/N: After I started writing this, we started reading Kafka's _The Metamorphosis_ in my English class. I will never look at insects the same again.

More fifth floor Titans! Yay! (Exposition is hard so I'm sorry for how awkward it is.) Kole and Jericho made this a lot longer than I intended but I like them :) I was too excited for them though so I didn't edit this very well...Don't be shy and let me know!

On another note, I made a few minor edits in earlier chapters but nothing major. Just things I thought over again.


	6. Spell Unbound

**Spell Unbound:** Rachel gets a boyfriend. Gar doesn't take it well.

The talk of the fifth floor of Titans Hall this week was Rachel Roth's new boyfriend.

Not just a _new_ boyfriend, they all whispered when they watched her float out of the building with a blissful dazed smile on her face. Her _first_ boyfriend.

It was starting to drive Gar up the wall.

He wanted to hear about the slimy pick-up lines some sleaze ball used to try to pick up Karen in Young Justice. He wanted to hear about Kole's new professor that mistook her for a lost middle schooler. He even wanted to hear about what happened when Vic walked in on Garth and Roy having sex in the middle of the day for the third time last week.

Anything but Rachel's _first boyfriend._

It didn't mean anything, that he was tired of hearing about it. It just meant he wanted some new gossip. That was it. It definitely didn't mean that he was _jealous._

Because he _wasn't_ jealous of Rachel's older, mature, poetry slam attending, black iced coffee drinking, motorcycle riding, leather _and_ sweater wearing, "I can pull off long flowing hair" boyfriend.

What did he have to be jealous of?

But if it bugged Gar that even Kori—Rachel's _best friend_ —hadn't met this guy yet, that wasn't jealousy. It was called caring and it was because he cared that he stole Rachel's phone to read through her texts and look through her pictures with this guy. Which, in retrospect, might have been a little creepy and maybe sort of illegal but still, that didn't mean he was _jealous._ Just a little more invested in finding out more about this guy than he maybe had to be.

But could anyone really blame him? Rachel had never shown anyone much interest—romantically or otherwise—and, as far as he knew, the most experience she had with this kind of thing was giving relationship advice to other people. Even with that, though, there was no way she could actually be prepared for one herself. Sure, she was the most mature person he knew and more than capable of taking care of herself and this guy sounded practically perfect for her—and maybe having someone besides Kori she didn't have to be so guarded around was a good thing for her—but what would happen to her if this didn't end well? He didn't want Rachel getting hurt.

That wasn't jealousy. If anything, it was being brotherly.

Gar paused on that thought and shook it out of his head. That was just too weird.

That wasn't even anywhere close to what they were anyway. Rachel and Vic had a sibling relationship. As far as Rachel was concerned, she and Gar were barely even friends. He knew this because he asked her three days after he heard she'd gotten a boyfriend. He spotted her across campus, shouted to get her attention, and was promptly ignored, which he decided to ignore in favor of being nosy. He asked all sorts of questions about this guy—what was his name, how old was he, how many love children did he have running around—and when she didn't answer a single one, he groaned and said, "Why won't you tell me anything about him? Aren't we friends?"

Then she'd given him a thoroughly unamused look and said, "Barely."

Which, rude, but it still bugged Gar that she was right.

All he knew about Rachel was she read a lot, she was an English major with a literature concentration, she hated kids but babysat three every other weekend, and despite all her sarcastic remarks and sharp words she was one of the nicest and most caring people Gar had ever met. They lived on the same floor. His roommate was dating her roommate. They saw each other almost everyday and sometimes when he said hi, she would say hi back.

But that didn't exactly make them friends.

A heavy lump that had settled in his stomach lurched in his throat. He felt like throwing up.

After a long moping session, fresh air sounded like a really good idea.

It wasn't quite dark yet when Gar left his room. The light blue sky outside his window was fading but he could still see an orange glow behind all the buildings. A little after dinner, his empty stomach loudly reminded him, and he considered grabbing a bite to eat.

At the same time he closed his door, another opened.

Rachel stepped into the hall looking…dressed up. She had on a black dress with long sleeves and swooped low in the back to a little above her waist. It stopped right above her knees, just low enough to keep her birthmark out of sight but still somehow made her legs more…eye-catching than usual. She wore a small black stone on a thin chain around her neck and matching black earrings and her hair had a small curl to it and all Gar could think was _wow._

Which he only realized he said out loud when Rachel jumped and looked at him.

All the blood rushed to his face so fast he almost hoped his head would explode so he wouldn't have to say anything to get himself out of this.

But because, sadly, that wasn't how anatomy worked, he ended up tensing and stuttering out a series of vowels and consonants that might have been "You look good" but it was really anybody's guess.

She raised an eyebrow at him and he realized she had on a thin line of eyeliner and some mascara, and her lips were a lighter shade of pink than normal and it did absolutely nothing to help the situation.

"Thanks," Rachel said and if it wasn't his imagination, she was amused.

Which annoyed him enough to calm him down and he followed after her down the hall. He made a big show of opening the stairwell door and bowing down low and said, "After you, milady."

She flicked his ear and started down the stairs. He grinned and and followed her.

"Where are you going all dressed up?" he said, too happy to brace himself for the obvious answer.

"Mal's taking me dancing," Rachel said, the tips of her ears going pink.

He stopped in his tracks and gaped after her. She glanced at him once, a little questioning, but kept going. He shook his head and ran to catch up with her.

"What about you?" she said, probably more out of politeness than any real curiosity.

Instead of answering, he said, "Dancing? Since when did you go _dancing_?"

"Since Mal invited me."

"So you're just gonna _go?"_

"Yes, Gar. That's how dates work."

That was how dates worked but that wasn't the important part here. "You don't even like dancing! The music's too loud and there's too many people and the lighting is never right and the bathroom line is always ridiculously long and—"

"That's why I don't like clubbing," Rachel said, giving him a weird look. "Mal's taking me ballroom dancing."

 _"Ballroom dancing?_ As in one, two, three, four box step dancing?"

"As in partner dancing, like swing or the tango."

Gar grimaced at the image of Rachel and some guy _tangoing._ "But you hate touching people."

"Mal isn't people," she said. They reached the bottom of the stairs and she pushed the door to the lobby open in time for light to catch the dreamy look on her face. "He's my boyfriend."

"Oh my God," Gar said. He stopped walking again and this time Rachel turned to look at him.

"What?"

"You're…mooning."

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him, like she heard him wrong. "What's that supposed to mean?"

This was the point where Gar should have kept his mouth shut. He should have said he meant nothing, just that he was glad she was so happy and congratulate her on her _perfect_ boyfriend and maybe make a joke about stepping on toes or something. He shouldn't have kept going because if he did he just knew he would say something he would regret.

But sometimes there was a reason people called him an idiot and this was one of those times.

"You're just so far gone on this guy and I don't get it," he said, looking at the tan tiles on the ground between them. "You keep disappearing to spend time with him and when you are here you're always thinking about him or texting him or acting like he's the only person in the world. You just keep following him around like some lovesick girl, doing whatever he says, and now he's making you go _dancing?"_

"He's not making me do anything," Rachel said with the kind of venom that on any other day would've had Gar running in the opposite direction with his tail between his legs. "He asked me to go dancing and I said yes because he's my _boyfriend_ and I wanted to. Not because I'm a lovesick girl. Where is this coming from?"

"From your friend! But, oh, I forgot. We're _barely_ friends. Then this is coming from a stranger that knows you're going to get hurt because of this guy. You've only known him for, what, three weeks but you're acting like you're going to spend your entire life with him! Because what? He said a few nice words and made you feel 'special?' Well, news flash, Rae. It's not hard to do that when you believe everything he says because this is the first time any guy has ever looked at you twice!"

Silence.

He looked up from the ground and opened his mouth to say…something—apologize. But whatever he was about to say got lost in his throat the second he saw the tears in Rachel's eyes. It was just one or two that overflowed from her eyes and fell down her cheeks, not even enough to ruin her makeup. Gar still felt like the scum of the earth.

"Fuck. You. Gar," she said through gritted teeth.

She left and Gar stubbed his toe when he spun and kicked the wall. He turned around and watched her leave and finally noticed his audience.

Vic, sitting behind the check-in desk, stared at him with wide eyed shock. If Gar had been anyone else, Vic would have been beat his ass in two seconds flat for making Rachel cry. Instead, all Vic said was, "Wow."

At which point, Gar clenched his fists, turned on his heel, and went back to his room.

* * *

Gar was miserable.

Irreversibly, catastrophically, life-altering-ly miserable. Rachel was finally starting to see him as something other than the annoying, loud, dimwitted roommate of her roommate's boyfriend and even if it was just as a barely-friend, it was still _something._ And he ruined that out of…

 _I'm not jealous,_ he thought stubbornly. Bitterly. _I'm not jealous._

Around eleven, Vic coaxed him out of wallowing in his misery into sitting in the hall with pizza and soda and neither of them mentioned what happened. Vic never pressed Gar into talking about stuff he didn't want to talk about and tonight, Gar could've given him a huge sloppy kiss for it.

In fact, was seriously considering it (because who needs girls anyway?) when Vic's phone played the Mario theme song and he answered it, saying, "Rachel? What's wrong?"

Vic stormed down the stairs and left Gar in the hall with a quarter of a pizza and a bunch of questions that Vic's explanation of "Rachel needs me, she's at the police station" didn't answer.

Gar paced the hall for nearly forty minutes (and finished the pizza. Worrying takes a lot out of a guy). Rachel was in trouble and Rachel needed Vic and Rachel was supposed to be out with her boyfriend and Rachel Rachel Rachel. A tangle of nerves sat in the bottom of his gut, which he was pretty sure wasn't the pizza because when Rachel and Vic finally came back and she didn't look immediately hurt or in danger the nerves unknotted a little in relief.

"Are you okay?" he cried, running up to her. "What happened? What happened to…" He trailed off when he caught Vic's warning look.

"What happened to who? Mal?" Rachel said with a kind of cutting humor that made Gar flinch. "That's a good question."

"I—what does that mean?"

"He left me," she said. "He just left me there. We were at his apartment and he went out to buy some drinks. He told me to stay, said he shared me with enough people tonight. I was flattered. Like an idiot. Five minutes later, the police were at the door, looking for him. They had a warrant and found drugs hidden under his mattress. I was there, they thought that I had something to do with it. They thought I…they thought I was helping him or that I was the one who…and he just left me there. He was going to let me take the fall. He—he used me." She lifted her eyes and looked straight into Gar's. "Congratulations, Gar. You were right. He did hurt me."

"I—" She stepped around him and he watched her walk down the hall. "I didn't want to be right about that."

"Looks like tonight was just full of disappointments then, doesn't it?" she said, unlocking her door.

"Rachel," Vic said, sounding lost.

She paused and looked at them. "Just leave me alone. Please."

The door clicked shut behind her. Gar and Vic had no choice but to do what she said.

* * *

No one saw Rachel for two days.

Kori spent those nights with Dick and Gar. She spent those days worrying about Rachel's heartbreak and asking everyone what went wrong. It was the hardest thing Gar ever did keeping his mouth shut but Vic told him to do better than his best at making sure no one knew what happened. Rumors spread fast on the fifth floor and Rachel spending some time with the police wasn't one that needed to get around.

By lunch the third day, Jinx and Roy were plotting all the ways they could end the ex's life as discreetly as possible. Kole pointed out all the flaws in their plans with a smile and gave them scarily accurate tips on how to improve.

Vic's plan was a little different and he invited Gar to go with him to Rachel's favorite bookstore filled with stacks and shelves of used books and literary themed tea packets to search for something to cheer her up.

For the first time in his life, Gar wished he liked reading more. Finding a present for Rachel would've been much easier if he'd actually heard of any of the books she liked. He tried looking, he really did, but somehow he still ended up in the comic book section. Although, he figured scanning the shelves, if these were comics in Rachel's favorite bookstore, maybe she'd give them a chance.

It wasn't like something as small as a book would do anything to make her feel better, anyway. Her first relationship ended in just about the messiest way possible. How was a _book_ supposed to help her bounce back from that?

But then he thought about a half-drunk night and the person who tried her absolute best to find the right words to keep him from completely breaking, and decided the least he could do was his absolute best to find the right book to maybe make her feel better enough to put herself together again.

So he pulled a comic book off the shelf he was pretty sure she wouldn't immediately detest, paid for it, and waited for Vic outside the store. He was scuffing the bottom of his sneaker on the sidewalk when he glanced up for no reason, looked back down at his shoes, then did a double take. He made a choked wheezing sound and slapped a hand over his mouth to stop any other noises from escaping. At that moment, Vic stepped out of the store, looking down at his purchase and saying, "I think she's really gonna appreciate—" and Gar tackled him.

"Dude!" Vic shouted. "What's your problem?"

Gar slapped a hand over Vic's mouth and yelled in a whisper, "Ex-boyfriend! Rachel's! Right there!"

Vic shoved Gar off and looked over the crowd. "Where?"

"Blond hair, leather jacket, purple scarf."

"Iced coffee, coming this way?"

"Yeah!" Gar wheezed, panicking. For no reason whatsoever, it occurred to him. This guy had no idea who Gar or Vic was, was totally unaware of their relation to Rachel, and was completely oblivious to the homicidal intent coursing off them in waves directed right at him.

They started coordinating a haphazard plan to corner the guy when something dark and purple in Gar's peripheral caught his attention and Rachel marched out of the surging crowd and right up to her ex-boyfriend.

Gar didn't have time to be even sort of excited to see her out of her room before he held his breath and watched the exchange, grateful that they were close enough to hear.

Mal paused, mid-sip of his coffee, and glanced around with one eyebrow raised, looking slightly amused. "Rachel. Fancy seeing you here."

"Likewise," she said. "It seems a bit arrogant for a wanted criminal to return to his regular hangouts. That, or just stupid."

"Oh, come, love," Mal said, reaching out stroke her cheek. She slapped his hand away with a disgusted scoff. "I'm the least of the authorities' worries."

"Arrogantly stupid, then," she said. She studied him, searched his face for something. "Tell me. What was the point? Why spend all that time getting me to trust you if you were just going to let it end like that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Mal smirked and lifted his drink in cheers. "It was much more fun that way. You have to admit you enjoyed it while it lasted."

Rachel hummed. "Of course." Then she reached into her bag and pulled a five dollar bill out of her wallet. With a straight face, she handed it to Mal.

He looked at the money then up at her, more amused than confused by this development. "What's this?"

"For the coffee," she answered.

"What coffee?"

"This coffee." She plucked his drink out of his hand, uncapped it, and unceremoniously poured it on his head.

Gar and Vic started cheering. Equal numbers of funny looks were sent to them and Mal, gasping and wiping coffee out of his eyes.

"What the—You bitch!" Mal shouted.

She ignored him, pulled her phone out of her bag, and dialed. Looking straight at Mal, she said, "I would like to report a sighting of a drug dealer I believe the police are looking for. Right outside of Azure Wrath's Books. He's the one with coffee dripping off his head."

The she turned on her heel and walked away.

* * *

Gar stared at the door with the kind of concentration he only reserved for video games at three in the morning.

He'd spent the hour since Rachel's awesome display of badassery and coming back from the bookstore trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say to her.

And really, he still had nothing but called through her door anyway. "Hey. Rachel?"

Quiet. Then a low and muffled, "Gar. I really just want to be alone right now."

Which, yeah, probably, but she needed to hear this now just as much as he needed to say it. "Look, you don't have to, say anything, you don't even have to open the door. I just—listen? Please?"

More quiet. He could imagine her sighing, massaging her temples like she was trying to calm her brain. "Fine."

"Okay," he said, relieved. "Okay. So, first, I'm really, _reeeaalllyyy_ sorry about what I said the other night. It was, completely out of line and I didn't mean any of it. Really. I'm not just saying that to make you feel better because I know that it won't really work anyway. You probably feel like shit right now. Like he just sort of tore your heart out of your chest and folded it into a paper crane and square danced all over it to some really crappy music—"

"Thank you for that illuminating summary, Gar."

"I just, I mean, I really am sorry about what I said. There are a lot of guys who think you're…I mean, even this girl from my cellular biology class asked me for your number, but, um, anyway. He—This was your first relationship. It, was normal for you to be so…lovestruck. I didn't mean to make it out to be a bad thing."

"…He made me feel like I belonged. Like, I was part of something instead of just watching it from the outside."

And Gar got it, he really did. He remembered his now-ex-girlfriend. He had friends, sure, but she'd made him feel…understood. She laughed at his jokes and listened to him when he explained his tattoos and spent an entire night just touching his scar after he admitted he was still scared to look at it sometimes. It felt like he could tell her anything and she'd still be there no matter what. And then, when she wasn't, he felt like a helium balloon that someone let go of. He'd been grounded, part of something, and then just suddenly cut loose. Alone.

Which wasn't even true because when he got back that night, Rachel had been there.

"Okay," he said, because it really was. "He made you feel like you belong and now you don't. I get it. But I think that holing yourself up in your room right now is probably the worst thing you can do then. Everyone's really worried about you. I'm…You think you're alone, Rachel, but you're not."

He held his breath for a few decades, sure he said the wrong thing, because it was quiet and still on the other side and maybe Rachel needed a little longer than a few days to get over her first heartbreak and Gar was an idiot for thinking he could make her feel better in the first place—

And then, before he could fully register that the door had even opened, Rachel stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Gar's bones turned to putty and he wondered exactly when he'd fallen asleep because this was a really weird dream.

Rachel was touching him. Rachel was hugging him.

Rachel was _hugging_ him.

That snapped him out of it and with some reluctance that took him by surprise, he put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. He gathered his courage to look her in the eyes and opened his mouth—

And a giant pillow slammed into the side of his head and knocked him to the ground.

"Pillow fight!" Vic stepped out of his room at the end of the hall with another pillow ready to launch.

Gar lay on the ground petrified and confused. Karma had a weird way of getting even.

Rachel peeled the pillow off Gar's face with a neutral expression then looked at Vic. The grin that spread across her face was practically demonic.

"Rachel," Vic said, hands up in surrender. "Rachel, just calm down now— _AAAH!"_

* * *

In the middle of Young Justice, while Gar was weighing the pros and cons of a fourth cup of coffee (because no one was here to stop him), a book fell on the table in front of him. Rachel followed it by falling into the chair next to him.

"…Hi," he said, leaning towards that fourth coffee because maybe he was only confused right now because he needed more caffeine.

"Vic says this is from you," she said, tapping the book.

He blinked, then looked down. It was the book he'd gotten at her favorite store. His face heated up. "I, well, yeah, sort of, I just, um, yes. Yeah. That was me."

She stared at him, unblinking and unreadable.

"I mean, I know it's not what you're usually into but, you know, it's—it was a good one. Not really what I'm usually into either, but I thought out of what I'm usually into this was the closest to what you're usually into, so I just…got it. For you."

She picked it up, inspected the blurbs on the back, and read the title. _"Persepolis."_

"I-I almost got you _Maus_ but, like, that's everyone's first comic book. It's good, you should definitely read it—if you want to, that is, I'm not telling you what to do—but I thought you might like this one more as your, you know, introduction to, like, the form. Or something...I heard someone say that before."

Then he stopped and wondered if he could go back in time about five seconds and cut out his tongue to save him from this moment.

She went back to staring at him.

"If you don't want it, I can—take it, return it, get rid of it then jump off a cliff because it is obviously the world's worst 'Cheer up' present ever, and maybe I should have gotten you that book of all the Bronte novels but it was really big and, like, I didn't want to hand you a murder weapon if you didn't like it—"

"There's a second one, isn't there?"

He paused mid-ramble because it almost sounded like she was interested. It even almost sounded like…

"You read it?"

"Sure," she said shrugging, looking away like it was nothing. "It was a gift from a friend."

He almost broke down in tears right there.

* * *

AN: So apparently it's been like six months since I last updated? Sooo...my bad. Seriously, I hadn't realized it's been that long. (Anyone still reading?) As an apology, here's a long angst filled chapter!

I rewrote the beginning like three times, wrote the rest of it, rewrote the ending a few times, and decided I didn't like the middle either so I rewrote that at least five times. This is the result. I almost went with the more literal "being used for sex" but it didn't really feel right if that makes sense? Or, who knows, maybe I've just seen too many crime shows.

I really wanted to fit in a joke about green not being a good color on Gar (green with envy? Get it? Haha) but it didn't make it. Still, I wanted to share it.

Thanks for sticking around, friends!


	7. Fire Alarms and News to Vic

**Fire Alarms and News to Vic:** Fire alarms suck and Vic gets some shocking news.

There is something to be said for Rachel Roth's level of self control that when a fire alarm shocked her awake at three in the morning, after three consecutive late-nighters catching up on reading and writing an essay on the historical context and cultural effects of _1984_ , she did not punch a hole into the nearest wall.

After fifteen whole seconds of the blaring siren and the flashing light, any hope Rachel had of ignoring all of it and just going back to sleep was dashed. She rolled over and groaned, dragging it out until it became a growl. Matching protests of a scratchy voice came form the other side of the room.

Neither of them moved for another minute. They both just laid there and suffered.

Then there was a pounding on the door and Vic booming, "Rise and shine, losers! Gotta evacuate!"

"Make him go away," the voice rasped. "He likes you better."

"He's your best friend," Rachel mumbled. "You make him go away."

When Vic pounded on the door ten seconds later, Rachel felt around the bed for her sweats and stumbled down the ladder. The flashing blinded her and she could only see blobs in the half seconds of light but when her feet touched the floor she saw the blob on the other side of the room touch ground at the same time.

Slitting her eyes, she started for the door and said, "Don't forget to put on a shirt this time, dumbass."

"You're a dumbass."

" _You're_ a dumbass," she muttered back because maturity went out the window on two hours of sleep.

She opened the door at the same time the blob walked into her, not getting the timing right to follow her out, and Vic raised his hand to knock on the door again, shouting, "Gar, I swear to God—"

"Nnnggghh, I heard you the first time, Vic," Gar grumbled, rubbing his eyes. He was close enough for Rachel to feel the heat of his chest against her back but neither of them were coherent enough to be aware of it. "Got it, jeez, evacuating."

Vic stood there, staring down at them with his fist still raised to knock, frozen.

"We can't evacuate with you standing there," Rachel snarled.

"I just—" Vic stammered. "I wasn't—I didn't think—I wasn't expecting Rachel to be here."

Gar and Rachel blinked.

And then with the brain power of a person tortured out of bed by a fire alarm at three in the morning, comprehension dawned on them.

Of course Vic wasn't expecting Rachel to be here.

The reason for that being that this was Gar's room.

Because when Rachel came back last night from a late trip to the library to check out some supplementary reading, Dick and Kori had already been tangled together in bed. And if Rachel had been thinking clearly last night, she wouldn't have been so taken off guard by this that she took some binders and notebooks out of her backpack to trade them for a random textbook or two sitting on top of her desk and made some lame excuse to get out of there as fast as she could. But she'd been bleary, drained, and tea-deprived and ended up sitting in the hallway next to her door with a book open in her lap and her head falling forward as she fought off sleep. She'd shaken herself awake for the seventh time when Gar found her and after a clipped exchange because he hadn't exactly been at his best either because of a few exams he'd been up late cramming for, he invited her to take Dick's bed again, and because she'd been desperate she accepted.

It wasn't the first time they shared a room and it wasn't even the second or third. After the awkwardness of that first morning wore off, it made more sense to offer a roommate's bed than to hijack someone else's floor. (Dick had had a weird reaction when he first heard about Gar sleeping in Kori's bed and really, it was none of Rachel's business how Kori got Dick to let it go since she had enough issues ignoring the fact that they probably had sex in the beds Gar and Rachel borrowed in the first place.)

So Rachel waking up in Gar's room wasn't news to them.

It was, however, news to Vic.

Rachel could see the dots connect in all the wrong places in Vic's head and she glared at him, ignoring the blood rushing to her face. "Whatever you're thinking right now, stop it, because it's too early and probably wrong."

"This is wrong," Vic agreed, looking haunted and disturbed. "On so many levels. I-I don't know who's ass to kick. Gar for violating my little Rae or Rae for toying with my boy Gar's heart."

"Hey," Gar said, half asleep and grouchy but still offended. "How come I'm 'violating' but she's only 'toying'?"

"It doesn't matter," Rachel said, punctuated with an elbow to his gut. "Because neither of those things happened. Nothing happened last night. Nothing happened on any night, ever."

"You mean this has happened before?" Vic said, verging too close on hysterical for comfort.

Rachel gave him a flat look. "What did I _just_ say?"

"C'mon, dude," Gar said, yawning. He ran a hand over his face and through his hair. "You gotta know we didn't do anything. Why would we?"

Rachel frowned and glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. "Should I be offended?"

"Like you don't feel the same way." He paused then looked at her. "Unless you don't? Because, you know—"

"Evacuating!" Vic boomed, making them both jump. _"Now."_

He stepped out of the doorway and loomed over them from behind as they walked down the hall. With the vague feeling of being walked to the principle's office, Rachel led the march down the stairs.

There was a crowd a few feet away from the front doors, murmuring complaints and questions about when they would be allowed back in. A group of security monitors gathered at the edge of the crowd and one of them waved Vic over when the three of them stepped into the cold night air. Before he left, Vic looked down at them disapprovingly and wagged a finger in their faces. "I'm not done talking about this so better get your stories straight before I get back."

"There _are_ no stories!" Gar groaned after him. Then quieter to Rachel, "Why would he think there are stories? Do we look like people with stories? Seriously."

Rachel hummed, searching the crowd for anyone familiar. A lot of them were from other floors, which was maybe for the best. She didn't feel like fighting off more assumptions of what she and Gar were doing together. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gar move and watched him find a patch of grass and collapse onto his stomach, his head cradled in his arms.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"I'm tired, Rae," he whined, dragging out each word. _Like Timmy,_ Rachel thought.

"It won't be that long till we can go back in," she said (hoped).

He nuzzled his head into his arms and she thought about her pillow and her blanket, which somehow made the air around her colder. She hugged herself, rubbing warmth into her arms. Her hands slowed as her eyelids drooped and her chin fell onto her chest. She jumped awake and when she looked down, Gar was on his back looking up at her.

She scowled. "What?"

He patted the grass next to him. "C'mon, Rae."

"What?"

"Lie down."

"Why?"

"Because you're tired."

"I'm not that tired."

"Liar."

"The grass is cold."

"It's not that bad."

"I don't want to."

He didn't say anything and she thought that was it. She looked around again (where was Kori, that wasn't Jinks, that kind of looked like Argent) and a hand wrapped around her ankle. She choked down a shriek and looked down at Gar with wide eyes.

"Come on, Rae," he said. "You're tired. Just rest."

She kicked his hand away. "I'm not that tired, Gar."

"Sit down for five seconds and I'll shut up."

"Gar. No."

"Rae. Yes."

"Stop calling me that."

"Rae," he said. "Yes. Rae. Rae. Sit down. Rae. Rae. Rae—"

She dropped into the empty space next to him. "Now, shut. Up."

He mimed zipping his mouth and throwing away a key.

They were apart from the crowd, their murmurings reaching them but not close enough for Rachel to make out any of the conversations. Cold from the grass soaked into her sweats and she mockingly remembered Gar saying it "wasn't that bad" as she hugged her knees to her chest. Two minutes later, she tried to convince herself two minutes wasn't that long but it became more and more difficult to keep her eyes open.

Gar tapped her shin and pointed at the sky. "Look."

She did. It was overcast, casting the sky a dark purple, orange in some parts where the lights from the city caught on the clouds. It was pretty in its own way if you didn't care about looking at stars but it made Rachel feel suffocated, like she was surrounded on all sides without any escape. She still wasn't used to the city yet.

"Your neck's gonna cramp up like that," Gar said, his voice gravelly from exhaustion.

"I'm not lying down."

"Just lie down. Enjoy the sky."

She glanced at him. "I thought you'd hate light pollution."

"Of course I do," he said. "I miss the stars. But I like the colors."

"Do you." She looked back up at the sky for a few moments and nearly fell backwards when sleep almost overtook her again.

Gar tugged on the back of her shirt. "Just lie down," he murmured.

"No," she said, more to say it than out of any real objection.

"You can blame me if you get a cold."

"Like I wouldn't have anyway."

When she finally gave in, Gar's hand was still holding onto her shirt which she apologized for because she was crushing it, but he was already asleep. She wasn't far behind.

* * *

 _"Yo!"_

Rachel started, gasping and turning her crinkled face up. Her legs were chilled despite her sweats but her upper body was almost warm and there was something wrapped around her shoulders. Right above her, Vic looked down with an expression halfway between scandalized and furious.

"I thought I told you to get your stories straight! Not make it more complicated!"

Rachel gave him a confused look. Then she heard groaning next to her, the thing around her shoulders tightened and fell off, and when she looked she realized she was half-lying on top of Gar. She jumped to her feet, too fast for how awake she actually was, and lost her balance. Vic grabbed her arm to save her from toppling over. Gar woke up slower and sat up, his hair flat against his head on one side. Blades of grass were laced through his hair, bright against the faded green at the tips of his hair.

The rest of the crowd was already trickling into the building with relieved and annoyed grumbling. They'd probably only been napping for at most five minutes. Rachel took a deep, tired breath and combed her fingers through her hair, just in case she had a matching hairdo. She matched Vic's frown.

"We fell asleep," Rachel said.

"I can see that," Vic said, hauling Gar up by his arm. "Let's go."

"Vic," Rachel said when they started up the stairs. "You don't actually think we're like that, do you? Me and Gar? Really?"

Gar glared at her sleepily. "Should I be offended?"

"Maybe."

Vic was silent until they reached the door to their floor. He kept his hand on it for a moment before turning around to look at both of them. Another moment and he said, "No. I don't. And, I'm not really worried about last night. It's more like tomorrow night that might be the problem."

Rachel and Gar exchanged looks. They both shrugged in confusion and followed Vic into the hall. It was empty, which was probably the only break they'd catch tonight. It was enough that Vic found out and thought something of it.

When they reached his door, Gar unlocked it (after a paralyzing three seconds of him not knowing where he put his key). Before he could walk in, Vic yanked him back into the hall by the back of his shirt, keeping the door open.

"Not you," he told Gar, and nodded at Rachel to go in.

"Wh—But, dude, that's my room!" Gar said.

"Not tonight. You're coming with me."

"What?"

"I have a space on my floor with your name on it."

"Dude! Rachel!" Gar looked at her for help.

Rachel considered the look on Vic's face and the open door. They were the only obstacles between her and the room—and the _bed._

"Sorry, Gar," Rachel said.

The look of betrayal on his face as she shut the door would have made anyone with a kinder soul and more sleep turn around, defend him from Vic, and let him in.

Rachel had neither.

Gar's protests came in muffled through the door. As she climbed into Dick's bed, she thought about how it was a little strange that she was sleeping in a boy's room without a boy, but when her head hit the pillow she decided it was worth the sacrifice. In the hazy moments before she fell asleep, she wished Gar luck.

She dreamed of orange and purple skies.

* * *

A/N: ... It wasn't six months. (I'm so sorry. I blame life.)

This isn't over, I swear, and with recent events, there will probably be a lot more coming sooner than later. I need to get my mind off things and I wrote things out of order so I need to get to those too.

I don't want to get political, but know that if anything ever happens, you're safe with me.


End file.
